Not reading much lately...

I have been in a non-reading place the last couple of weeks. I started reading Twilight, but just couldn't get into it. It is very young, and so detailed I got bored with it. Plus Christmas is a week away, and I am crashing on a cross-stitch project for my Mom. I already finished one for Mike's Mom (well, almost finished - need to sew the edges and stuff) and I really like to give one homemade gift to each Mom. All I have left to do is the outlining and the finishing, so I am in pretty good shape.

Anyway, I probably won't be reading anything but the paper until after Christmas. So Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year to everyone!

Her Fearful Symmetry

Okay, so I am generally a fan of mystical realism, and this book is by Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote The Time Traveler’s Wife. So I should have loved it, right? Well, I didn’t. I didn’t hate it, and I finished it in less than a week, so it was definitely interesting. Let me try to describe it.

Valentina and Julia are the twin daughters of Edie, who is the twin of Elspeth. Edie and Elspeth haven’t spoken in 20 years, and live on opposite sides of the Atlantic, but when Elspeth dies she leaves everything to the twin girls. The only caveat is they must live in her flat for a year, and their parents are not allowed in the place. That sounds like an interesting story, doesn’t it?

Things start to get weird after the girls move to the flat in London. They meet Robert, Elspeth’s much younger lover and neighbor, who develops an attraction for one of the twins. And they meet the ghost of Elspeth, who is trapped in the flat.

The plot takes some very strange turns, and I sort of saw the end coming but was still a bit shocked by it. The most striking thing to me about this novel was that I really didn’t care for any of the characters, except Robert and Martin, another neighbor in London. I found the twins to be vapid, insipid girls, and Elspeth selfish and conniving. And there is a “big family secret” that doesn’t really seem to add much to the plot, except to give the reader an idea of the kind of people we’re dealing with.

As I said, it was interesting, and I wanted to find out what happened, but it was creepy, and I felt a little dirty. It’s definitely NOT a book I’ll read again, but it wasn’t a waste of time.

Shanghai Girls

If you loved Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (as I and many of my friends did), you will love this new book by Lisa See too. Shanghai Girls follows the lives of sisters Pearl and May, who we first meet in Shanghai in the 1930's when they are comfortably bourgeois "beautiful girls" of 21 and 18. The novel follows their lives for the next 20 years, through tragedy, joy, and everything else that life can throw at you.

See does a fabulous job (in my uneducated opinion) of capturing life for the Chinese who fled their country ahead of the Japanese, came to an America that really didn't want them, and made a life as best they could. But this novel is not just a touching and sometimes discomfiting historical novel, nor is it just a study of East vs. West; it is in its essence a story of sisterhood. Pearl and May go through so many life events together, and at the end of the novel we learn how differently they experienced those events. Still, no matter their problems and their differences, they still have their "sister love."

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I'm a huge Jane Austen fan, so when I heard that someone had updated her P&P to include zombies, I had to read it. It's so popular I had to put it on reserve at the library (although we have already established that my library is crappy). Anyway, I was thrilled when the book came in and started to read it almost immediately.

I'm sorry to say I couldn't finish it. I couldn't even get through a quarter of it. It's clever, yes, but it's also corny, to be very honest. And it gets tiresome pretty quickly. I'm sorry I didn't like it, really I am, but I didn't.

Testimony

Let me say first that I am a big fan of Anita Shreve. She is a gifted writer whose work is never trite, and she tackles difficult subjects with grace and care. But this novel, I must say, is one of the most disturbing I have ever read. And I couldn’t put it down.

Testimony is the story of what happens when a group of private school kids make a sex tape – 3 upper-class basketball stars and 1 freshman girl. We hear multiple perspectives, from the headmaster to the participants to their parents. We learn about the mistakes made on the part of the school administration and the parents, and the culture of drinking and easy sexuality, but we never really learn about what drives these kids to do what they do. Most disturbing to me, though, was the flatness of the character development of the girl – she is portrayed as a vixen, not a victim, and we never really see what vulnerabilities lead her to act the way she acted.

The saddest and most engaging story line is that of Silas, one of the basketball stars. He’s a “townie” at the school on a scholarship, and his girlfriend is a gifted musician on her way to Julliard. He is arguably the most sensitive of the kids involved in the scandal, and also the one with the most to lose. Although I don’t think it’s meant to be, his is the story that kept me reading until the very end.

Like much of what I’ve been reading lately, this was not an easy read, but it was definitely worth the time.

The White Tiger

So this is the second book I’ve read this year that has anything to do with India (the first was Eat, Pray, Love). After the first one, I wanted to visit India; after this one, not so much.

The White Tiger is a great book – don’t get me wrong. But it tells a very bleak story of life in India. Yes, life is especially bleak for the servant class and those who live in the “Darkness.” But it’s no bed of roses for the “landlords” and the rich people either. Dishonesty and corruption affect everyone.

But despite the sometimes sad and occasionally horrifying story, this was a very enjoyable book with a very likeable main character. Balram is charming, ironic, snarky, and darkly humorous. I’m not sure I would like him as a person, but as a main character and narrator he is thoroughly entertaining.

If you liked Slum Dog Millionaire, you’ll like The White Tiger. But you probably won’t want to visit India.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

I loved this book! For all you fans of mystical realism, this is a must read. It’s the story of Connie Goodwin, a Harvard graduate student whose hippy mother asks her to clean up her grandmother’s long-empty house near Salem. When Connie goes to the house – the hidden-by-the-garden, no electricity, no phone, hundreds-year-old-house – she discovers an old key with a scrap of paper referring to Deliverance Dane. The discovery leads her on a quest to find the physick, or shadow book that was handed down from mother to daughter for several generations.

During her research, Connie meets the handsome church restorer, Sam, and develops a sweet romance. When harm befalls Sam, Connie has to find Deliverance’s book in order to save his life. That makes the last quarter of the book just fly. And we have a villain (though I figured him out long before Connie did), and an adorable (and very special) dog named Arlo.

I really like the style of Howe’s writing. She switches between Connie’s life in 1991, and the 1692-1700-something lives of Deliverance, Mercy, and Prudence (gotta love those names). Deliverance is part of the 1692 Salem witch trials (and is probably the only one of the convicted women who is an actual witch). Howe provides a great deal of well-researched history and theories about the place of women and “women’s things” in American history. At first I was confused as to why she set the story in 1991, but then it dawned on me: in 1991 the Internet didn’t exist for the masses, and almost no one had cell phones or lap tops. To find information you had to go someplace and look for information. The story wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if Connie could have Googled Deliverance Dane on her MacBook.

Twenties Girl

This was a fun book – a quick read, amusing story, and likeable main characters. Lara and Sadie are an odd pairing – Lara’s a 27-year-old living woman, and Sadie is the 23-year-old ghost of Lara’s just deceased great aunt. But they have great chemistry and lots of fun.

This book is no great work of literature; it’s chick lit. But that’s the fun of it. Sophie Kinsella is also the author of the Shopaholic books, so she knows how to do chick lit and does it well. The addition of the ghost Sadie just makes it that much more interesting. And I like the details about ghosthood that Kinsella creates. For instance, Sadie died at the age of 105, but her ghost is 23 because, aren’t we all 23 on the inside no matter how old we grow to be? And she doesn’t wear the outfit she died in; she wears whatever she imagines. And although Lara is the only person who can see and hold a conversation with Sadie, other people can sort of hear Sadie if she screams in their ears – they think they are hearing a voice inside their heads. It’s quite amusing the way she toys with some of the people in Lara’s life (particularly the man Lara thinks she loves).

Twenties Girl was a very quick read – about two days. I’ve never read any of the Shopaholic books, but now I may have to check one or two out.

The Time Traveler's Wife

I just read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. WOW! What a fabulous book. Now I can’t wait to see how they messed up the movie. Because you know they did – there is no way to capture the way Henry travels, or the uncertainty that Clare feels, or the way their love story ends (I bet they change at least one aspect of that, if you’ve read the book you can guess what I mean). And I’m sorry, but for me Rachel McAdams will always be Regina George from Mean Girls.

Anyway, on the surface this book totally satisfies all of those romantic fantasies that women have about having a soul mate, but deeper down it’s kind of disturbing to me because it’s almost like Henry made himself Clare’s soul mate. And there are all sorts of issues about love and time and acceptance and fidelity that are floating throughout the story. It’s one of those books that can be read on a number of levels, and different readers will see different themes in it, and be affected by different aspects of it. It’s just a really rich story.

The Last Few Weeks...

So, in the last few weeks I’ve read three books: One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell, Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg, and Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande. They were all pretty quick reads, and they were all pretty good, but all very different.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Candace Bushnell is the woman behind Sex and the City. New York plays a starring role in all of her work, and this book is no exception. But instead of focusing on the single-ladies-looking-for-love-in-the-City, instead she focuses on the EXTREMELY wealthy people who inhabit a world that most of us can only dream about. These are the people who pay tens of millions of dollars for a penthouse apartment and then hire a designer to renovate the place. Granted, they occasionally mingle with normal people who are scraping by to make their rent, but those people are abnormal in other ways (trust me). That is probably my biggest disappointment with the book – there are really no “normal” people. I mean, are there really 22-year-old women in NYC whose parents pay their rent, after having already paid for a boob job and liposuction, all so the little darling can marry a wealthy man? REALLY?? If you are a fan of Bushnell’s work I’m sure you will like it, but it’s not Sex and the City.

After that foray into how the other half lives, I was ready for something a little more accessible. Home Safe was the right choice. Elizabeth Berg is a very good writer, whose characters deal with deep emotional issues but without crossing the line to melodrama or whining, and who generally have a sense of humor about themselves. I think the thing I liked most about this novel is that the main character is a novelist who is going through a very dry spell, and her feelings about writing and reading and books in general made me long to start writing my own fiction. This is a nice novel, about a woman’s journey from loss to acceptance of herself.

When I returned those books to the library I was looking through the pathetically minimal new book selections, and came across Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies, which my library apparently considers new even though it was published in 2006. Anyway, as a word geek I couldn’t resist it. Casagrande takes issue with people who use grammar rules to bludgeon people (if you’ve read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, you know who I mean), and she uses humor AND research to back up her points. A very useful book and a very quick read, and Casagrande seems to have a fabulous time using the various style manuals against each other. I’m considering buying a copy to keep in my office.

Black Hills

I am a fan, so it pains me to say this, but it has to be said: Nora Roberts has turned into Danielle Steele. Her latest novel, Black Hills, is so formulaic that I could have written it. It’s a fill-in-the-blank based on any of a number of her other novels — Nora just changes the setting, the characters’ names and occupations, and the murderer’s motive. Yes, there is a crazy murderer, but everyone figures out who he is halfway through the book.

Nora (I’ve read enough of her novels to be on a first name basis) even uses some of the same scare-tactics she used in other novels. I’m pretty sure I remember dead animals being left on doorsteps from High Noon. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the book, and I’m not saying I didn’t read the whole thing in about two days. What I’m saying is that it just felt like Nora wasn’t even trying, like she knows all of us chicks will read her books no matter what.

Another issue: her main characters are named Lil Chance and Coop Sullivan, for crying out loud. And of course Coop has piercing blue eyes, and Lil is beautiful and fit, feisty and athletic. She even likes baseball. Why do we never have main characters named Kathy Baker and Steve Johnson, who both could stand to lose a few pounds?

Anyway, I think I’m going to swear off Nora Roberts for a while, at least until her next mystical realism trilogy comes out; I always go for those.

The Zookeeper's Wife

I picked up The Zookeeper’s Wife thinking it sounded like a great story; it wasn’t until I started to read it that I realized it was a true story. Diane Ackerman tells the story of Antonina and Jan Zabinski, Christian Poles who helped saved the lives of over 300 Jews by hiding them in and around their zoo in Warsaw during WWII. Although Jan is the zookeeper who fights with the Underground – and is injured in the Warsaw Uprising – it is Antonina who keeps her “House Under a Crazy Star” together, providing a warm and “normal” environment for her numerous “Guests.”

For the most part I liked the book. It is a heart-warming story, and one many people are probably unfamiliar with. Ackerman writes with poetry and humor, and her descriptions both the people and the animals are interesting and clever. She wrote the book based on Antonina’s journals and personal interviews with survivors, including Antonina’s son, so her descriptions of Antonina’s experiences regarding the events of the war are probably pretty true, and I found them to be honest without being glossed over.

My main complaint about the book is that Ackerman often interrupts the flow of the story to insert research that I found to be unrelated. For instance, one of the Zabinski’s Jewish friends was a collector of insects, and he amassed a huge collection. When the Nazi’s forced all of the Warsaw Jews into the Ghetto, the bug collector smuggled his collection out with Jan to be held for safekeeping at the zoo. Ackerman describes all of the different bugs in the collection for three pages. I understand that she is a naturalist, but it was totally unimportant to the story.

Overall though, this is an enjoyable book (if any book dealing with the Holocaust can be said to be enjoyable). If nothing else, I learned about two war heroes whom I had never before heard of, and that’s something worthwhile.

Outliers: The Story of Success

I like the work of Malcolm Gladwell a lot, and this third book of his did not disappoint. Outliers looks deeply at the circumstances that surround success. As always, Gladwell uses a lot of interesting facts to back up his ideas, and he introduces us to a lot of interesting people. He discusses topics that are familiar enough to most of us that there is something of interest for everyone.

Critics might say that Gladwell stereotypes and generalizes, but he addresses those critics by saying that just because something is true of a particular culture, that doesn’t mean it is bad; he believes that we should embrace the things about our culture that make it unique, not dismiss those cultural norms as bad or stereotypical.

The book is an easy read – I read it in about a day. And it’s packed with enough interesting information that I found myself sharing all of it over dinner with family and friends, and probably will continue to do so for a while. I highly recommend it both for Gladwell fans and for fans of pop culture.

Eat, Pray, Love

I don't read a lot of memoirs, but I heard good things about this memoir of Elizabeth Gilbert's travels in Italy, India, and Indonesia, so I decided to check it out. I am so glad I did. First, I have to say that Liz (I feel like I know her well enough to call her that) is a fabulous writer - witty, warm, smart, and self-deprecating. I think she would be fun to hang out with, maybe have a drink and chat for a few hours.

Second, she really brought to life the countries she spent time in, and made me really want to visit one of them in particular. Nope, not Italy: India. She made me want to hang out at an ashram in India - and I have never had any desire to go to India. But the people she met and the experiences she had were just so amazingly deep and spiritual that I would love to have the opportunity to experience something similar (though I know that my experience would be very different from hers).

So, I highly recommend Eat, Pray, Love. It's an excellent read with the potential to change your life.

Who Killed Change?

This book about how to manage organizational change successfully was written by Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, and a distinguished group of co-writers, so I was expecting good things.

I was disappointed.

The book is written as a contrived murder mystery – who killed Change? It is awkward and tedious, and by the third “interview” with a “suspect” it is really old.

On the plus side, if you are new to change management this book is not a bad introduction. The last chapter lays out the authors' recommendations (without the murder mystery framework) and contains some good information. However, for the OD practitioner, there is nothing new here.

Lastly, even though this book is obviously not a scholarly work, I was disappointed that no credit was given to others for their important work in this field. For instance, the author mentions the difference between theory-in-use and espoused theory, but he never mentions Chris Argyris. But maybe that’s an indication of Blanchard’s intended audience, because anyone without a background in OD would probably not notice that oversight.

The Blue Notebook

Wow. So many words come to mind to describe this book by James Levine: beautiful, sad, disturbing, poignant, and horrifying are just a few. The story of Batuk, the Indian girl sold into prostitution by her family at 9 years of age, is one of the most amazing books I have ever read.

I am amazed that a middle-aged male doctor was so adept at capturing the voice of a young female Indian prostitute. Dr. Levine really takes us inside Batuk’s head, and also gives us a pretty ugly picture of the seedy side of India. I had just watched Slumdog Millionaire before starting The Blue Notebook, but the movie only scratched the surface of the atrocities suffered by the poor and unwanted children of India.

I am also amazed at the depth of Dr. Levine’s characters. The story is told in Batuk’s voice, writing in her cherished blue notebook, so I am not surprised at how well-developed her character was. But even the characters we only meet on one or two occasions – Bubba, for instance – are drawn with such detail that the reader can almost see them, can almost hear their voices.

The book is not for everyone. It’s a difficult subject told in strong detail. But I strongly urge everyone to buy a copy, if only because all of Dr. Levine’s American proceeds are being donated to the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children. You can get if for about $16 on Amazon.

The House of Allerbrook

This historical novel by Valerie Anand is actually the second in a series; the first is The House of Lanyon. I didn’t know that when I read it, and the story stood up fine on its own.

The main character in the novel is Jane Sweetwater, and we follow her through about 60 years of her life, starting at the age of 15 or so. It is set during the 16th century, where young Jane becomes a member of King Henry VIII’s court and is lucky (or unlucky) enough to catch the king’s lustful eye.

I know, that sounds like a bodice-ripper, doesn’t it? But it isn’t, I swear. Jane marries and has a kid and spends most of her life in the country. But what makes the book interesting is all of the history that she and her family become involved in over the years, including traveling to the New World.

It’s not a fabulous novel and it certainly isn’t life changing, but it’s a very pleasant read – a perfect beach/pool read.

The Book Thief

What an amazing book. It’s a touching story, beautifully written, with enough action and humor to keep the pages turning. I have to admit that I found it a little hard to get into at first, because the narrator is Death, as in “angel of.” But once I accepted the narrator’s plausibility and felt comfortable with the format, it was a truly amazing story.

The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster child living in Germany during World War II. Populating Liesel’s world are many very real and likeable characters, including her foster father Hans, her friend Rudy (who I think I liked best), and Max, the Jewish refugee the family hides in their basement. But the main character of the book isn’t Liesel, in my opinion, but the books, both those she steals and those that are given to her. And ultimately this is not a story about Nazi Germany and World War II, but instead is a story about the power of words.

The book was marketed for young adults, but I didn’t know that until after I had read it, and I never guessed that it was not intended for adults. I highly recommend it.

My First Post!

I’ve never had a blog before, but since finishing my Masters degree in December I have really missed writing. I tried starting a journal but I am just not that into self-examination. Then I realized I could start a blog about something I love – books.

I have been a voracious reader my entire life. Because I ride the Metro to work I have almost an hour of reading time built into every workday, so I can sometimes get through a couple of books a week. As I have gotten older I have become more selective about what I read, so you won’t find any posts about Danielle Steele novels here. But I’m not a snob, so you almost certainly will find posts about Nora Roberts novels.

Maybe it’s a good idea to describe my taste in books, so people will have an idea of what kinds of books I will be blathering about. I like fantasy, but not science fiction. In other words, yes to Harry Potter and Sookie Stackhouse, no to aliens from planet Gorp. I like historical fiction, but not bodice-rippers. I’m not a fan of murder mysteries, but I like mystery-romance (hence Nora Roberts). I tend to read novels more than non-fiction, although I do like Malcolm Gladwell’s stuff, and I think one of the best books ever written is The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn.

Other than that, I am not picky about what I read. I am lucky enough to live one block from the Arlington County Central Library. I am unlucky in that it’s Arlington County, arguably one of the worst libraries in the Metropolitan area (I have been on the waiting list for Outliers for about a year). But it’s better than buying books. I am also lucky enough to have a friend who feeds me books after she reads them, and our tastes are pretty similar (thanks Rita!).

Okay, enough intro – time to start blathering!